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Hardware Raid 0 and dynamic disks
Hello members!!
I have a promise multi raid solution built on my motheboard. Just loaded XP Pro on three (3) WD 200gig HD's using RAID 0. Should I convert to the new partition (600gig) to dynamic disk or is that only needed when you don't have a hardware raid setup and want to use windows to stripe/mirror? Thanks... |
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Hardware Raid 0 and dynamic disks
After you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, you cannot change the
dynamic volumes back to partitions. Instead, you must delete all dynamic volumes on the disk and then use the Convert To Basic Disk command. If you want to keep your data, you must first back it up or move it to another volume. . Before you convert disks, close any programs that are running on those disks. For the conversion to succeed, any master boot record (MBR) disks to be converted must contain at least 1 MB of space for the dynamic disk database. Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional automatically reserve this space when creating partitions or volumes on a disk, but disks with partitions or volumes created by other operating systems may not have this space available. (This space may exist even if it is not visible in Disk Management.) Once converted, a dynamic disk will not contain basic volumes (primary partitions or logical drives), nor can it be accessed by MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT, or Windows XP Home Edition operating systems. Dynamic disks can only be accessed with Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional. When you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, any existing partitions or logical drives on the basic disk become simple volumes on the dynamic disk. Do not convert disks to dynamic that contain multiple installations of Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional. When a disk is converted to dynamic, the partition entries for all partitions on the disk are removed, except for the system and boot volumes of the currently running operating system. Converting a disk to dynamic does not check for other installations of Windows, and deletes the partition entries for any other boot volumes on the disk. In addition, the volume-related registry entries in the second installation become outdated, and as a result you can no longer start that operating system. More on Dynamic disks and volumes Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes), and the ability to create fault tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). All volumes on dynamic disks are known as dynamic volumes. There are five types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5. Mirrored and RAID-5 volumes are fault tolerant and are available only on computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or Windows XP. However, you can use a computer running Windows XP Professional to create mirrored and RAID-5 volumes on these operating systems. Regardless of whether the dynamic disk uses the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style, you can create up to 2,000 dynamic volumes per disk group, although the recommended number of dynamic volumes is 32 or less per disk. When using dynamic volumes, the following limitations apply: When installing Windows XP Professional. If a dynamic volume is created from unallocated space on a dynamic disk, you cannot install Windows XP Professional on that volume. However, you can extend the volume (if it is a simple or spanned volume). This setup limitation occurs because Windows XP Professional Setup recognizes only dynamic volumes that have an entry in the partition table. Portable computers. Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers, removable disks, detachable disks that use Universal Serial Bus (USB) or IEEE 1394 (also called FireWire) interfaces, or on disks connected to shared SCSI buses. If you are using a portable computer and right-click a disk in the graphical or list view in Disk Management, you will not see the option to convert the disk to dynamic. Dual-boot computers. Dynamic volumes (and the data they contain) cannot be accessed by, or created on, computers running MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows XP Home Edition that are configured to dual-boot with Windows XP Professional or Windows XP. If you want computers running these operating systems to be able to access the data, store the data on basic volumes instead. When extending a volume. If a basic volume is converted to dynamic (by converting a basic disk to dynamic), it may or may not have an entry in the partition table depending on whether that volume was a system or boot partition. If the converted volume was a system or boot partition it retains an entry in the partition table. You can install Windows XP Professional on the volume, but you cannot extend it. If the converted volume was not a system or boot volume it does not have an entry in the partition table. You cannot install Windows XP Professional on the volume, but you can extend it. On Windows 2000, volumes converted from partitions have an entry in the partition table. On Windows XP Professional, volumes converted from partitions do not have an entry in the partition table unless the partitions were system or boot partitions. In Disk Management, you can see if a volume has an entry in the partition table by right-clicking the volume. If Extend Volume is disabled, the volume has an entry in the partition table. You can install Windows XP Professional only on simple and mirrored dynamic volumes, and these volumes must have entries in the partition table (which means that these volumes were system or boot volumes). "sabastion" wrote: Hello members!! I have a promise multi raid solution built on my motheboard. Just loaded XP Pro on three (3) WD 200gig HD's using RAID 0. Should I convert to the new partition (600gig) to dynamic disk or is that only needed when you don't have a hardware raid setup and want to use windows to stripe/mirror? Thanks... |
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